How Many Calories in Alcohol? A Shot of Vodka, a Beer and a Glass of Wine

Ask how many calories are in a shot of vodka and the useful answer is a rate, not a number: pure alcohol carries about 7 kcal per gram, nearly twice what sugar does and second only to fat. A 1.5 fl oz shot of 80-proof vodka is 42 g of liquid, a third of it ethanol, and USDA scores it at 97 kcal. Every other drink on this page is that same rule with water, sugar, juice or cream poured around it.

Alcohol is 7 calories per gram, and that is most of the story

Food energy is counted with the Atwater factors: 4 kcal per gram for protein and for carbohydrate, 9 for fat. The FAO’s reference on the method adds that “the Atwater general system also includes alcohol with a rounded value of 29 kJ/g (7.0 kcal/g or an unrounded value of 6.9 kcal/g),” and USDA’s database documentation states that “for foods containing alcohol, a factor of 6.93 is used to calculate kilocalories per gram of alcohol.” Every figure below is that factor applied to the grams of ethanol USDA measured, plus 4 kcal per gram of carbohydrate in the glass.

The CDC defines a U.S. standard drink as “0.6 ounces (14 grams) of pure alcohol”: 12 oz of 5% beer, 5 oz of 12% wine or a 1.5 oz shot of 80-proof spirits. At 6.93 kcal per gram, every standard drink starts at about 97 kcal from the alcohol alone; what sits above that floor is carbohydrate.

Read across and the pattern is the whole article: a spirit is 100% alcohol calories, a regular beer about two-thirds, a dry wine about six-sevenths. In a margarita alcohol and sugar split the bill, and a non-alcoholic beer is nearly all sugar, which is why it lands above a light beer rather than below it.

Calories per serve: beer, wine and spirits

USDA publishes each drink per 100 g and weighs its own serves. The grams below are those portion weights, and calories = kcal per 100 g × grams ÷ 100, rounded; two rows have no USDA serve and are marked as computed.

Two things stand out. Vodka, gin, rum, whiskey and tequila at 80 proof are the same drink to a calorie counter, 231 kcal per 100 g and 97 per shot (tequila, FDC 2710705, matches the vodka row exactly), because each carries 33.4 g of ethanol per 100 g and nothing else that counts; only proof and pour move the number, and USDA’s five strengths climb in step from 231 kcal per 100 g at 80 proof to 295 at 100 (275 at 94, FDC 173663). And the pint: 16 oz of regular beer is 4/3 of USDA’s can, about 204 kcal, while a pint of a higher-alcohol style lands near 275.

Cocktails: the mixer is the variable

USDA’s survey database, FNDDS, measures mixed drinks as consumed and weighs its “1 drink” at 225 g, about 7.6 fl oz — a generous bar pour. Scale by the grams you were actually served.

Hold the spirit constant and watch the mixer: vodka and soda 133, vodka and tonic 189 (FDC 2710670), rum and cola 200. The 56 to 67 kcal between them is the sugar in the mixer, more than the gap between a light beer and a regular one. The sweet-and-sour family sits near 270 because so much of each glass is syrup, and the piña colada tops the list because coconut cream adds fat, at 9 kcal per gram.

You can also build a drink from parts. A 42 g shot of gin is 97 kcal and 4 fl oz of tonic is 122 g at 34 kcal per 100 g (FDC 171869), or 41 kcal, so the gin and tonic comes to about 138 kcal; the same shot of rum with 4 fl oz of regular cola (123 g, FDC 174852) is about 149, and with diet cola (FDC 175099) about 99. Those are estimates from USDA components, smaller than the FNDDS rows mainly because the glass is smaller. For anything you pour yourself, the mixers per 100 g are tonic 34, regular cola 42, diet cola 2, club soda 0 (FDC 174842), ginger ale 34 (FDC 174846), orange juice 45 (FDC 2003597) and cranberry juice cocktail 52 (FDC 173214). Tonic is the surprise: a sugared soft drink at four-fifths the calories of cola.

Why “zero carb” vodka still has calories

The label is not lying: USDA lists 80-proof vodka at 0 g of carbohydrate and 0 g of sugar per 100 g. What it does not say is that a nutrition panel accounts for three energy-bearing nutrients and alcohol is a fourth — ethanol is not a carbohydrate, a protein or a fat, and it carries 7 kcal per gram on its own metabolic pathway. A spirit can be genuinely keto-compatible and still be, per gram, the most calorie-dense liquid most people drink: 295 kcal per 100 g at 100 proof, against 42 for a regular cola. The same logic explains the light-beer paradox: a low-carb beer at 0.73 g of carbohydrate per 100 g (FDC 169575) is still 27 kcal per 100 g, because its 3.3 g of alcohol accounts for 23 of them.

How to log a drink without a label

Most drinks arrive without a nutrition panel, and a database row called “beer, 1 serving” has already decided the size and strength of your beer. PlateLens logs from a photo, from a barcode on a can, or from what you type or say: “two IPAs and a double gin and tonic” is a loggable sentence, and “Fix it” corrects a generous pour in another one. It runs on a free plan with daily limits, with a paid tier that removes them. To place 300 kcal of cocktails in a day, see how daily calorie targets are built; how many calories 10,000 steps burn shows what walking it off actually costs.

A note before you change how you eat

This is a page of food-composition arithmetic, not dietary or medical advice, and it says nothing about how much alcohol is safe to drink; the CDC page below is used only to define a standard drink. If you are planning to change what or how much you eat or drink, talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian first, particularly if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, under the legal drinking age, managing diabetes, liver or kidney disease, or have a history of disordered eating or of alcohol dependence. And if counting the calories in a drink is making eating or drinking feel stressful rather than clearer, that is a reason to stop counting and talk to someone.

Where these numbers come from

Energy factors: FAO, Food Energy — Methods of Analysis and Conversion Factors, chapter 3; USDA, Standard Reference Release 28: Documentation and User Guide (2015, revised 2016). Standard drink: CDC, About Standard Drink Sizes, reviewed December 12, 2024. All retrieved 5 September 2026.

Drink composition: USDA FoodData Central, retrieved 5 September 2026, SR Legacy (2019), Foundation (2021) and FNDDS (2024) as marked. Every FDC ID on this page links to its record: 174818, 171919, 171920, 173663, 173664, 2710705, 168746, 168749, 169575, 171906, 174863, 2710622, 173190, 174837, 2710687, 2710664, 2710670, 2710633, 2710660, 2710644, 2710638, 2710630, 2710654, 2710662, 2710639, 2710642, 2710695, 2710697, 171869, 174852, 175099, 174842, 174846, 2003597, 173214. The 12 oz non-alcoholic beer, 5 oz sparkling wine, 16 oz pint and every component-built cocktail are arithmetic on those records, not USDA measurements.

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